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Suzan Womer Katzev, Helena Wylde Swiny (eds.), The Kyrenia Ship Final Excavation Report, Volume I: History of the Excavation, Amphoras, Ceramics, Coins and Evidence for Dating

Stella Demesticha
p. 542-547
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Suzan Womer Katzev, Helena Wylde Swiny (eds.), The Kyrenia Ship Final Excavation Report, Volume I: History of the Excavation, Amphoras, Ceramics, Coins and Evidence for Dating. Oxbow Books, Oxford, 2022. Hard cover, 464 pp. with many illustrations, separate folder with four fold‑out plates (I‑IV) – ISBN 978‑1‑7857‑0752‑0.

Texte intégral

1The final publication of the Kyrenia shipwreck, a legendary underwater excavation project, can only be exciting news for the Mediterranean archaeological community. This book, the first of three volumes, is structured into seven chapters, each delving into the topics outlined in the subtitle: history of the excavation, amphoras, ceramics, coins and evidence for dating. According to the editors, the book unfolds like the Kyrenia project itself, distilling 50 years of research and the work of nearly 60 scholars and scientists. The first five chapters are subdivided in sections authored by old and new members of the team, with contributions by the editors that link recent work with the excavation and the long period of study that followed.

2Susan Womer Katsev and Helena Wylde Swiny (SWK and HWS, as they are abbreviated throughout the volume), made sure that “Chapter 1. Introduction” prepares the reader for what is to follow. SWK opens the chapter with a moving, almost emotional, short introductory note. Addressing one of the ancient ship’s sailors, she distills the mystery, the challenges and special allure of the excavation as well as the bond it creates between the past and the present, the archaeologists that work on the ship and the men who once sailed it. With a series of brief sections “Dedicated to Michael and Susan Katzev”, the floor is given to team members at the time, who share their memories and personal experiences and tell the history of the project in a very personal style. Some of these people, and most of all, the director of the project himself, did not live to see the final publication of their work. But their voice is heard, through meticulous citations, not only to their notebooks but also to old discussions and correspondence. These notes reveal much about the pivotal role of people and personalities in this unique project, and make a valuable contribution not only to the history of the Kyrenia shipwreck excavation but also to maritime archaeology, which was taking its first steps, back in the 1960’s.

3In “Chapter 2. The excavation”, the editors undertook the difficult task to write the history of the project, incorporating Michael Katzev’s yearly reports to the National Geographic Society, assembled by SWK and Mary Sturgeon (“2.1 How it began”). Through a well-written narrative, resembling an archaeological documentary and illustrated with invaluable archive photographs, the reader follows the progress of the excavation and recovery of the ship (1967-1969), the pioneering conservation at the time (1970-1971), and the ship reassembly for the exhibition at the Castle of Kyrenia (1974-1975). While previous publications have provided glimpses of these phases, this is the first time that a comprehensive history of the project is published in a systematic manner, with fascinating details and valuable insights into decision making and outlining strategies. It is a rare opportunity for maritime archaeologists, now active in the field, to find out about old problems and their improvised solutions, some of which may seem outdated (like the ‘cheese cutter’ system as an alternative to stereophotogrammetry, pp. 25‑26), but some are still timely (like the hull recovery process, pp. 28‑29; or, the importance of reassembly for the full understanding of the ship, p. 39). This journey through the project ends with an Addendum by SWK (p. 41), which marks the beginning of four more sections. Section “2.2 Kyrenia Remote Sensing Analysis”, by J. N. Green, takes us back to 1967, when the first remote sensing survey in the history of underwater archaeology was conducted with a proton-magnetometer and a metal-detector. After a well-illustrated summary of the methods and the results, partly published in previous reports, what follows is an important assessment linking the 1967 survey with plans processed in 2018. This may be “more of an academic interest, than a practical one” (p. 50), but it certainly demonstrates the innovative character of the project and touches on the very timely subject of processing legacy data with digital technologies.

  • 1 K. Muckelroy, Maritime archaeology. Cambridge, 1978.

4The next section, “2.3 Kyrenia Ship Data”, is of key importance for the readers that wish to delve into the main content of this volume, namely the pottery finds and their locations in the assemblage. The editors explain in detail the recording system, the elaborate tagging strategy, and the plotting methodology. The excellent four fold‑out plans that accompany the publication in a separate folder illustrate the remarkable mapping of each single find in discussion (“Kyrenia Ship”, “Amphora Plan”, “Level I, II, III”, and “Shipboard Life Plan”). Unlike many excavation reports, this extremely helpful and transparent discussion on data management in a pre-digital era does not hide what went wrong. It addresses tantalizing issues, such as shipwreck stratigraphy and layers, but also other fieldwork aspects familiar to any shipwreck excavator. For example, in order to tackle issues that cannot possibly be predicted beforehand, the recording system in a dense assemblage of underwater finds often undergoes continuous adjustments during the project. These adjustments can lead to consistency issues, particularly when additional but inevitable problems arise, such as double tagging or discrepancies between underwater and on‑the‑surface tagging. In section “2.3 the Kyrenia Ship Application”, T. L. Myette Jr, explains how all this work was transferred to the digital era, with the development of a custom-made application, which serves the needs of the specific project but can also be used by other excavations. Three appendices follow, with the full catalogue of the finds: “Appendix 2.3a1: Amphoras from the Kyrenia Ship” (55 pages, 1006 entries: 911 numbered and 95 non labeled, featured as NT in the catalogue); “Appendix 2.3a2: Pottery (P. Numbers) from the Kyrenia Ship” (16 pages, 154 entries); and “Appendix 2.3a3: Non amphora and non P objects cited in the volume” (26 metal, 3 stone and 15 wood finds). The chapter ends with section “2.4 Evidence for Octopodia activity on the wreck site”, which addresses the impact of Muckelroy’s scrambling devices – a work that is conspicuously missing from the bibliography.1 This is a detailed explanatory account of post depositional movements of finds as a result of octopus activity, which moved small finds around and turned 28 catalogued amphoras into their dens. These site formation episodes add to the rich biography of the site, and become a recurrent subject throughout the following chapters.

5The first section of “Chapter 3. The amphoras”, authored by M. Lawall, presents a comprehensive study written by a world authority on Greek amphoras. The author revisited old reports and created a concordance between the original 11 amphora Types of M. Katzev and their typological names in the current literature (Table 3.1.1) namely: Rhodian mushroom rim, Rhodian rounded rim, Rhodian fractional, Knidos mushroom rim, Knidos prow-stamp, Samos O‑stamp, Koan mushroom rim, Koan, Palestinian hole-mouth, Phoenician-style Egyptian, Cypriot, and Unattributed. He addresses key topics of amphora studies, with highly informative introductions on the state of research regarding “Typology, provenance, chronology and quantification”. Based on the Rhodian stamps, he argues convincingly that the most plausible date for the shipwreck should be placed around 295 BC. The catalogue of 165 amphoras (selected out of 381 as representative of all types) is well-illustrated, with photographs and drawings of diagnostic parts. Consistent with the text, it provides information on the amphora dimensions, capacity, lining, stamps, taphonomy, and provenance (pp. 157‑172). Most importantly, the discussion puts the material in context. First, within the ship(wreck) itself, Lawall examines the role of the amphoras as cargo, crew equipment or detritus, through spatial and quantitative analysis. Rub marks noticed on the shoulders of 135 amphoras, trigger the discussion about the lading system in the hold but the author concludes that the marks were the results of post-depositional processes. Stamps, the most widely studied topic of Greek amphoras, are also discussed in an excellent literature review, focusing on the current scholarly debate about their role in trade mechanisms (as means of fiscal, quality or quantity control). Based on the rarity of stamped amphoras in the cargo, coupled with the diversity of the stamps and the absence of any pattern in their location in the hold, the author concludes that stamping was associated with production, not with shipping. The capacity of only 51 (out of 314) Rhodian amphoras was measured, but this group is considered sufficient to estimate an intended capacity of 20‑26 liters (7‑9 Chian choes) for the Kyrenia shipment. The discussion continues with an attempt to place the shipment in its wider historical and archaeological context, first by examining the Kyrenia amphoras as shipping containers (their stoppers, or lack thereof, their contents and their market value), and then by discussing “The Kyrenia Ship Amphora Cargo and Early Hellenistic Shipping”. The author’s attempt to find shipping patterns between the Kyrenia and four other shipwrecks, dating between the early fourth to the early third century BC, is faced with the realities of shipwreck archaeology in the region: a few systematic investigations and sites of diverse state of preservation and in different stages of research. Drawing from his deep knowledge of the subject, he adds an excellent overview of the scholarship about early Hellenistic containers in the different economic zones of the eastern Mediterranean (South eastern Aegean and southern Asia Minor; Athens and Corinth; Southern Lycia, Cilicia and Cyprus; Syria-Palestine; Egypt). There is little doubt that Egypt was the destination of most shipments of early Rhodian amphoras outside the Aegean. But unlike land sites, shipwrecks represent random episodes, and the argument that Egypt must have been the ship’s final destination, especially given the shipwreck’s location, is not very convincing. The section finishes with “Appendix 2.3a1 Amphoras and Amphora fragments”, namely the full list of the shipment’s amphoras, with their location details and dimensions.

6The editors’ contribution to this chapter, section “3.2 Observations on amphora distribution”, is a detailed account on the amphora layers and the difficulties faced in the attempted spatial analysis of the shipwreck assemblage, so many years after its excavation. The reconstruction of the stowage system and evidence on the site’s formation processes are presented in detail, from the excavator’s perspective. The section complements the chapter meaningfully, although it would be much easier for the reader, if some repetitive themes, such as the stamped amphoras, the rub marks and the almonds found in the cargo, were summarized together. In the three sections that follow, diverse, interdisciplinary, amphora-related subjects are discussed. The analysis of four resinous samples, by C. Beck and D. J. Ossenkop, showed that the composition of an amphora and a pitcher lining were identical and different from the coating of a hull strake. A very innovative approach to shipwreck archaeology is provided by four marine biologists, C. Jimenes, K. Achilleos, A. Petrou and L. Hadjioannou, who studied the shipwreck’s ecosystem through the biogenic remains on the amphoras. Mortality events, like those of bryozoans which do not survive when covered with sediments, can be interpreted as proxies for paleoenvironmental conditions and when used on a larger scale can help us understand key stages of the site’s formation processes (a term well-used in this section).

7Studying and contextualizing the non-cargo items from shipwreck assemblages is a very demanding task, given the lack of geographical context. Identification presupposes a deep knowledge of the eastern Mediterranean archaeological record. This was not a problem for A. Berlin, the lead author of “Chapter 4. Goods of the Crew”. The ceramological analysis of the 112‑114 vessels, namely their origins and date, is done expertly. Berlin discusses the material from different angles, all in a very insightful and methodic way. In accordance with the previous chapter, she distinguishes between items in use during the last voyage, and ‘bilge’ ones (Lawall uses the term ‘detritus’), recent and early. Her conclusion that the dates of ‘early bilge’ items and those in use during the last journey falls within one generation (late 4th to early 3rd century BC) is of key importance for the reconstruction of the ship’s biography. She also focuses on people, the crew’s ethnic identity and social status, something rare in pottery studies. The author treads skillfully on the matter, and the result is a robust and well-documented narrative on “life on board”. Her quantification confirms M. Katzev’s original idea that the ship was manned by a crew of four, who had sit-down meals with one set of table wares, each: a kantharos, an olpe, an oil container, a small and a large saucer, a wide and a narrow bowl, a salter and a wooden spoon. We learn that they were most probably free men, not slaves, associated with a mixture of cultures that reflected the eclectic character of the early Hellenistic eastern Mediterranean. It is uncertain if they were, or called themselves Rhodians. Although their dining sets came from the island, the author prefers to call them “citizens of the mobile maritime world” of the eastern Mediterranean (p. 280). In the same respect, however, the ‘early bilge’ items from Egypt, Cyprus and the Levant, may not necessarily represent ports of call in previous voyages, while the ship was tramping along the coasts of the region, as Berlin suggests (p. 274). The section ends with an informative catalogue illustrated with the artful drawings of SWK. In the multi- authored section “4.2 Graffiti on the ship’s ceramics”, the reader follows a dialogue between the experts of the topic (A. Johnston, Chr. Rollston, J. A. Hackett) and the editors, about the inscribed pottery vessels, their spatial arrangement in the aft and fore cabins, some unusual inscriptions on the interior of the vessel and the captain’s belongings. Section “4.4 Plotting shipboard life”, also by the editors, is an interesting exercise on spatial analysis, that can only be followed with the fold‑out plans open. Their insightful hypotheses could have been better illustrated by 3D reconstructions, but maybe this is work for the future.

8“Chapter 5. Ceramic analysis” is a more technical one, consisting of five sections on different analytical techniques applied on samples from the excavated pottery. These side projects showcase the remarkable determination of the excavation team to make the best out of archaeological science, since the very beginning of the project. On the flip side, sampling strategy during this long endeavor was inevitably fragmentary. It is a pity that this is not explained anywhere, making it difficult to understand how representative the results are for each group of pottery. M. D. Glascock and L. G. Cecil open section “5.1 Neutron Activation Analysis” (NAA) with an introduction on the project history. Although early reports were not produced for various reasons, they are well-used and acknowledged. The authors identified 11 compositional groups from within a 134‑specimen dataset, listed in Appendix 5.1.1, at the end of the chapter. Petrographic analysis was conducted by Y. Goren (Section 5.2), who, after an informative introduction on petrography and provenance, explains his methodology of in situ study of the samples. In total, 95 samples from 92 different vessels were examined, some of which were also analysed by NAA. He identified 12 fabric groups with attributed provenance from the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean (Appendix 5.2.1). The results of Organic Residue Analysis on four potsherds are included in section 5.3; two from a Samian amphora and a krater, studied by J. A. Palatinus and R. F. Beeston in 2008, and two, from a pitcher and a cooking pot, studied by R. F. Beeston in 2017. Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry analysis, conducted on seven samples by V. Garner, were shown to be contaminated by modern material, so SWK summarized the original report, to serve as a lesson to be learnt (p. 380) (Section 5.4). L. Briggs and L. Drieu sampled 12 vessels for organic residue analysis with three extracting methods. Contamination from plastic was confirmed but it was possible to yield some useful results: pine tar and pitch, rather than resin, were used as sealants in Rhodian amphoras but, surprisingly, no clear evidence for wine was found. Plant oil products were detected in Samian amphoras, along with various fruit products in a pitcher, a krater and an amphora. The book ends with Chapter 6, by P. W. Keen, who provides a comprehensive discussion on the seven bronze coins excavated from the site. He elaborates on the absence of Rhodian coins and confirms the dating of the ship’s last voyage to the first decade of the third century BC, as well as on the association of its previous activities with different maritime centres of the eastern Mediterranean. The glossary at the end of the book is very helpful, especially for non-shipbuilding specialists, and the large maps in the front and back endpapers provide all necessary geographical context.

9One the book’s many strengths is that each section is written and can be read independently. When it comes to cross referencing individual finds or quantifying, however, this becomes the only weakness worth-mentioning, in my opinion. Information about finds is spread in separate appendices, not listed in the table of contents and placed within different chapters, where catalogue numbers are not consistently used. Without the help of an index or a general catalogue, one can end up with confusing impressions. For example: I counted 95 NT (non-tagged) amphora in Appendix 2.3a.1 instead of 105 mentioned in Section 3.2; the numbers of minimum number of Rhodian full size amphoras in Table 3.1.5 seem to add up to 304 and not 314; according to the same table, the total amphoras of the site are 381 but in the Conclusions, HWS refers to 379. Be that as it may, considering the almost overwhelming wealth of information provided in this book, these are pedantic details that cannot in any way diminish the value of this outstanding volume. Its contribution to shipwreck archaeology is invaluable, with legacy data and new approaches intertwined in fascinating narratives that captivate the interest of maritime archaeologists, ceramicists, and students of ancient economy and trade. More has been planned for the two forthcoming volumes: Volume II “will set the scene of the ship’s trading world”, while Volume III “will be devoted to the ship itself” (p. 396). We can only express gratitude to the editors for their remarkable work and anticipate the release of the next two volumes.

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Notes

1 K. Muckelroy, Maritime archaeology. Cambridge, 1978.

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Stella Demesticha, « Suzan Womer Katzev, Helena Wylde Swiny (eds.), The Kyrenia Ship Final Excavation Report, Volume I: History of the Excavation, Amphoras, Ceramics, Coins and Evidence for Dating »Cahiers du Centre d’Études Chypriotes, 54 | 2024, 542-547.

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Stella Demesticha, « Suzan Womer Katzev, Helena Wylde Swiny (eds.), The Kyrenia Ship Final Excavation Report, Volume I: History of the Excavation, Amphoras, Ceramics, Coins and Evidence for Dating »Cahiers du Centre d’Études Chypriotes [En ligne], 54 | 2024, mis en ligne le 30 octobre 2024, consulté le 12 mars 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/cchyp/1645 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/12lsp

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